Weddle to speak at Books Alive!

Set in a contemporary rural Southern community, the book is described as a “novel-in-stories.”

Weddle says that while the stories interconnect, there is no direct and complete overlap in the overall story arc. The main character, Roy Alison, returns to his rural hometown from jail to find the working class community devastated by economic hard times. The stories develop the plot with different voices.

He chose interrelated stories, “because fragments sometimes give a better view of the whole,” he explained. “Imagine a stained glass window. Each fragment is a different size, shape, and color, though when put together they give you a bigger image. I tell the story of the community in pieces.”

The characters are based on real people or composites of real people, according to Weddle. “A piece of one person might combine with the profession of another, creating a more fictional character,” he added.

Country Hardball is Weddle’s first novel. The title comes from an aggressive style of playing baseball, but it is also a way of thinking about the world.

“The book is about people who work hard, who do the things they have to do to get by. Like Dennis McWilliams tells the girl at the gas station. Like Cleo tells Roy. Like Brother Obie tells the boy in “Miracles.” You just have to do the thing. You have to get in the boat,” said Weddle.